The massive asteroid — larger than Japan’s main island of Honshu — is traveling at a speed of over 720,000 kilometers per hour (450,000 mph) when it crashes into the Pacific about 1,500 kilometers (1,000 mi) south of Japan. The impact causes the crust of the Earth to peel away like the skin of an orange, in what is called a “crust tsunami.” Japan and a large portion of Asia are disintegrated, and chunks of burning rock as large as city blocks are hurled into the atmosphere before raining back down on the planet.